California’s Richmond Housing Authority, racked by mismanagement and fiscal abuse, must meet key benchmarks or be taken over by the federal government.
Amy Julia Harris
Reporter
Amy Julia Harris is a reporter for Reveal, covering vulnerable communities. She and Reveal reporter Shoshana Walter exposed how courts across the country are sending defendants to rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry. Their work was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting and won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. It also led to four government investigations, including two criminal probes and four federal class-action lawsuits alleging slavery and fraud.
Harris was a Livingston Award for Young Journalists finalist for her investigation into the lack of government oversight of religious-based day cares, which led to tragedies for children in Alabama and elsewhere. In a previous project for Reveal, she uncovered widespread squalor in a public housing complex in the San Francisco Bay Area and traced it back to mismanagement and fraud in the troubled public housing agency.
Before joining Reveal, Harris was an education reporter at The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. She has also written for The Seattle Times, Half Moon Bay Review, and Campaigns and Elections Politics Magazine.
Posted inMoney and Politics
Homeowner fighting foreclosure wins trial loan modification
Ricardo Rodriguez (holding bullhorn) participates in a protest against Bank of America in early March, recounting his story of fighting foreclosure on the steps of a branch in the San Francisco’s Mission District.Amy Julia Harris/Center for Investigative Reporting Ricardo Rodriguez, a San Francisco resident who has been fighting to save his home from foreclosure, has […]
Posted inMoney and Politics
Error claims cast doubt on Bank of America foreclosures in Bay Area
Joji Thomas was desperate to save his home. The San Francisco mechanical engineer sold his car, tapped into his wife’s savings and begged friends for money. In July, to stave off foreclosure, he bought a $27,777.85 cashier’s check and mailed it to Bank of America. Joji Thomas (right) directs movers as he packs up his […]
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Posted inMoney and Politics
Subsidiaries handling foreclosures pay off for Bank of America
Bank of America has found a way to make money through foreclosures by using a complicated web of subsidiaries. The process begins with a company called ReconTrust, which handles 1 in 5 Bay Area foreclosures. Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America plays the largest role of any bank in Bay Area foreclosures. From July 2008 through October, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Health Care
Calif. disability center staff weighs in on patient abuse claims
Patrick Leslie, a chaplain at the Sonoma Developmental Center, speaks about the facility’s need for good publicity at a public forum hosted by California Watch and the Sonoma Index-Tribune. Anna Vignet/California Watch SONOMA, Calif. – California’s largest full-time care center for the severely disabled needs more staff and accountability to correct major internal breakdowns that led […]